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The Blog Squad - Part 11

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

What is the best blogging advice you've ever been given?

To remember WHY I started book blogging in the first place and to always remember that I blog because I LOVE READING, and not the other way around. I think it’s always important to keep this in sight and remember to keep doing what you love

IT IS HARD TO CHOOSE JUST ONE. LIKE REALLY HARD - MY BRAIN ISN’T WORKING RIGHT NOW.

I agree with Uma, though. Don’t imitate! It’s hard and it can make you sick and you feel like rushing around the house screaming it’s not fair (I’m an example of this, yes) but trust your own creativity. Look at the bloggers you admire and learn from them without copying. Be inspired, by all means, but don’t steal their ideas. If you trust yourself and trust what you love, then go wild. There’s an AMAZING feeling that comes with creating your own unique piece of art/writing/blogging, etc etc. Learn and be inspired and push yourself to create something you’re proud of. And chances are, you’ll grow to love your work more than any other blogger’s

What's the worst or most misleading blogging advice you've ever been given?

This is a tough one, because I haven’t actually received any BAD advice per se but there’s something that’s often talked about in the blogging world that I think needs to be addressed here. And that is, BLOGGING CONSISTENTLY.

Now yes, as a blogger you DO need to be consistent, but there’s consistent and there’s consistent.

Don’t rush in and create hundreds of posts and try to post every day, - you’re going to burn out or at least wonder how on EARTH do I keep doing this? You might start posting every day, then go down to every other day, then once or twice a week.

By the same token it can also be difficult to sit down every day/every other day to create your content and rinse and repeat. After a while (possibly even years) you will wonder, how on EARTH do I keep doing this?

The answer is to find your rhythm - what can you realistically expect of yourself on a weekly basis. You need to both be able to create content but also have actual breaks. If posting every day still works for you - that’s amazing! But if it doesn’t, don’t feel pressured!

Blogging consistently is also completely different to blogging a lot. You do NOT need to post content every day - you just don’t! Nor do you need to have such a rigid blogging schedule that your posts go up on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:25am. If your content is good/unique/interesting it’s going to get read regardless of whether or not you post at the same time every week.

You also need to consider the fact that you need to have a balance between posts and engagement on posts - especially in the beginning. I don’t think that posting on a daily basis will increase your traffic but in fact it could divide your traffic between all your content when you could have maximised engagement and page views by posting less!

I feel like I’m echoing Di and Uma’s answers, but I also don’t think I’ve ever really received bad advice.

But….if I have to choose, I’ll go with the issue of blog design.

A lot of people seem to think that cluttered sidebars and lots of colours is the best way to go, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Choose two to three “theme” colours and don’t go all rainbow. They might look pretty at first, but they can also REALLY hurt the eyes and distract from content.

As for sidebars, keep them simple and only add the gadgets you need to share. I find that simple is the best way to go when designing your layout; simple doesn’t mean unprofessional - it means clean and attractive and easy to navigate. And the number of gadgets or plug-ins also affects your loading speed, so keep them sparse if you want people to stick around

If you could only give one piece of advice to an aspiring book blogger, what would it be?

I think if I could only give one piece of advice, I’d have to remain in the same vein of the great advice that I was once given - Remember WHY you blog and the love that you have for books. Don’t make this into such a chore that you don’t enjoy it anymore. Keep reading the books that you love and if you want to read that book that doesn’t necessarily fit into your usual genre/category or whatever - DO IT! Don’t ONLY read for your blog - blog because you are reading.

Do NOT beat yourself up if you don’t post often or if you struggle with creating graphics, etc. Every blogger has bad days, and sometimes taking a break is an excellent thing to do. If you planned to write a review on Thursday but when it comes to Thursday you can’t gather your thoughts or you’re stressed because of school and can’t focus, DON’T WRITE THE REVIEW. Give yourself a chance to breathe and relax. Blogging is supposed to be fun. Don’t stress about losing followers if you don’t manage to post for three days. First and foremost, it’s your blog and you’re blogging - hopefully - because you enjoy it. Remember that <3

We hope you’ve enjoyed the eleventh in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.